


A Vampire's Dreams

by ajfessler



Category: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Get Together, M/M, Modern Era, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-08-22 21:02:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8300911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajfessler/pseuds/ajfessler
Summary: What happens when the person you loved enough to live for is taken away? What happens when they come back? Abe shouldn't remember. Henry can't forget.





	1. Henry Sturges

**Author's Note:**

> It just stopped and it was so sad for Henry, so I continued it in my own fashion. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy.  
> -AJ

“A boy only gets this drunk when he wants to kiss a girl or kill a man.”

Henry had lost count of the number of times he had said that very same phrase to so many different boys. Only one, though, had left any discernible imprint on his long memory. Abraham Lincoln. 

Lincoln had been the best damn vampire hunter Henry had ever seen, either before or after. Abe had been a loss of life that was the second most painful he had ever had the misfortune of experiencing. The first had been his wife.

Abraham had been something of a surprise, initially. Henry thought he had made himself immune to the will of the heart and for a time that had proven correct. He had thought himself as lifeless as he should have been, with no passion for anything more than what was necessary for survival, for blending into the shadows. But then pain filled brown eyes, one swollen entirely shut, had looked at him and saw not a monster but a man. They had become something of friends despite everything that Henry had done to keep his distance. 

The news that Lincoln had lost a son had brought Henry to the white house as fast as the trains would run. The look of abject destruction in those expressive brown eyes had cut him to the soul. Before he truly thought it through Henry had offered to Lincoln something he had promised himself he would never give. The opportunity for his little boy to return to life. Henry hadn’t been surprised when Lincoln said no, but Mary, grieving mother that she was, saying yes had him pausing. Could he go through with it? Before he had even been forced to answer that question Abe had leaped to dissuade his wife. 

He had been terrified beyond all reason on the train, thinking that Adam was going to succeed in killing the world’s best hope for a future. He hadn’t originally planned to step in between Adam and Abe, but ever since that first moment Henry had wanted to be a better man, for Abe. 

Years later, long after the loss had settled heavy in his breast, he would regret stepping in and saving Abe the bite of a vampire, but Henry couldn’t have guaranteed that a bite would be all that Adam would give. There was nothing in the world that he wanted to see less than someone he loved drunk dry by the very same creature who had stolen his wife. 

The rocks had been a delightful surprise. 

One hundred and fifty-one years later, he found himself in a bar looking at an idiot and couldn’t fathom why he kept doing this, continued training new boys to kill monsters. None compared to that one shining star. 

The newest one didn’t even last long enough for Henry to learn his name. Didn’t even have half the stamina and willpower as Abe had possessed and turned up dead in the river less than a week after he had sent the boy out into the world. Dry as a husk with two punctures on the neck. Henry returned to his townhouse to drown his sorrows. 

He laid down to sleep and was plagued by dreams of brown eyes and fly away brown curls. Henry woke with a gasp to wet checks and an ache in his loins no woman could sate. An irritated sigh escaped him as he wiped his cheeks and threw the bedclothes off. A growl emerged as he threw open the door to his bathroom and turned on the shower. There was no sense in going back to bed now. He would just dream once more of something that was long out of reach.


	2. Abraham Lincoln

Matthew Abraham Lincoln, Abe for short because he’d been named after his father, could trace his family lineage back to President Lincoln through Mary Todd. A point of pride for his otherwise un-noteworthy family. He was just your typical college student attending George Washington University. He was in his final year of an art history degree. 

When he was fifteen, the dreams had started. Dreams of an era that was long before he had been born. Dreams of an era one hundred and fifty years in the past. Dreams of death and monsters. And dreams of a man in dark tinted glasses with a sardonic smirk. 

What started as dreams, actually seemed more of memories. Memories of a train on fire hauling rocks, a ruse to get the vampires all in one place. Henry saving his morality so that he might save Will. Memories of chopping down a tree in one swing with an ax that was unbalanced and in desperate need of sharpening. Memories of black ichor and shallow graves. 

For the longest time, he had thought he was gay, that his dreams were just a reflection of his sexuality but every boy he perused, and they all had the same defining characteristics, paled in comparison to his dreams. Their dark eyes held no mystery or witty humor, their dark hair was never the right shade of black, their chiseled jaw lines either a touch too firm or a bit too soft never the sharp cut lines of the man in his memory. He’d taken up drawing in an attempt to get the face out of his head, but the more he drew the man, the more he dreamed. 

Just as a test Abe had taken an ax and tried to call up what he considered memories rather than dreams. They were too detailed, too realistic, too precise to be dreams. He had stood in the middle of the woods with an ax in his hands and let his mind drift back to those snatches of conversation. When he’s bought the ax he had specifically gone with the one with a wooden handle, it had felt like it belonged in his hands. Staring at the tree, he had chosen Abe tried to cast his mind back. How had Henry put it?

“It isn't a tree. It's what you hate most in the world. So tell me, Mr. Lincoln: what do you hate?”

What did Abe hate? In those dreams he had hated his own weakness, his own inability to take action, to effect change. These days, though, he didn’t possess the loss of his mother to spark that rage. So, Abe closed his eyes and let his mind wander. There was an answer, and Abe was confident that it had nothing to do with hate. Opening his eyes, he swung at the tree and tried to feel that freeing sense of righteousness. The ax stuck in the side of the tree. In front of his mind’s eye though was Henry with a smirk remarking “Pathetic.” 

He snarled and swung again with the exact same results. This time, Henry’s voice breathed, “Weak.” 

Abe barred his teeth and swung again, angry at the overwhelming sense of irrational loss that voice, those words invoked within him. Drowning in the sense of devotion and tenderness that face solicited. Suddenly, something inside him shifted and as he swung the ax it slashed through the tree as if it wasn’t even there. 

He stared at the fallen tree for several long minutes before realizing that someone would have heard the commotion and it wasn’t eighteen seventy-three anymore. Randomly cutting down a tree in the forest was a crime these days. Grabbing his pack and the ax, Abe ran. But in his head he heard Henry whisper “Power, Lincoln, _real_ power, comes not from hate, but from truth.” 

That night he dreamed of a single kiss born of intoxication that was soft, sweet and so heartbreakingly tender that Abe couldn’t have said if it had happened or not. As a consequence, he slept poorly and woke far earlier than desired. 

The repercussions of that lack he was half asleep in both of his morning classes. The first, a large lecture over East Asian Art, dozing off was frowned upon but permitted. When you teach to five hundred students three days a week, there was little a professor could do to enforce attention. The second class, on the other hand, was one of his final electives and was a course on drawing the human anatomy. 

A voice clearing behind him forced Abe to start up, staring around in shock. The voice of his professor informing him blandly, “Mr. Lincoln, see me after class.”

Abe put his head in his hand and just sighed. A glance down showed him a sketch not of the surprisingly attractive model but of Henry. It was from one of his memories of when he had barged in on Henry in the bath. With a groan of dismay, he turned the page and did his best to concentrate on the assignment at hand. 

After the class had let out, Abe stayed behind, as requested. His professor held out a hand, a clear demand for his sketch book. Abe handed it over and watched in disjointed horror as his teacher opened to the page of Henry in the bath and said, voice seemingly uninterested, “There is a man who looks a great deal like the one you sketch who can be found most evenings in the Shadow Room.” 

Abe nodded, unsure how to respond without sounding like an idiot or a lunatic. His professor didn’t seem to notice as she went on, “If you harbor such a fascination for this man, you should probably think about taking your relationship, whatever it may be, to another level, but that is none of my business. Matthew, you are a talented artist, and I would hate to see you throw away an entire semester’s worth of work by sleeping through my class. Do not let it happen again or I will dock you the points for the day. Am I understood?” 

With a suppressed eye roll, he hated it when people called him Matthew, Abe nodded twice and replied firmly, “Loud and clear.” 

His professor gave him a long hard look, before handing him his sketchbook back and saying, “You are dismissed, Mr. Lincoln. Do try and use other models going forward for your homework?” 

Abe felt his cheeks heating up as he nodded and strode from the classroom. Once safely in his apartment, Abe threw his books down and put his head in his hands. Why couldn’t he have just kept his eyes open?


	3. Henry meets a Ghost

Henry didn’t expect anything of his visit to the Shadow Room. It wasn’t really his scene, though nothing these days really was, and it was overpriced swill aimed at satisfying college morons who had come for the experience instead of the education.

The last thing he expected was to run into an Abe Lincoln look-a-like. He had encountered a few over the years. Each a near perfect visual replica of the original, each a flawed version of that same model. This one, though, didn’t act at all like any of the rest. The boy in question ordered a drink, sat at a table and quietly watched, toying with the old fashioned tumbler with long, agile fingers. It hurt to watch, his Abe had done that as well. Even so, Henry could feel those eyes, kind and shrewd and full of mischief, return to his back time and time again. 

After two hours of being stared at Henry decided enough was enough and moved to leave. He pushed his way through the throng of drunk college students bouncing in a puppet masters parody of dancing towards the back door in the hopes that the man staring at him would merely assume he was taking a piss. Henry’s luck was never that good, though.

A voice rang out clear in the alleyway behind the bar, commanding “Wait!”

Henry froze, this was the first look alike to sound like his Lincoln. The one from his memories. The one who was long out of reach. Henry bowed his head and wondered what this imposter wanted. He was almost intrigued enough to find out but just as he decided that it wasn’t worth the heartache a hand grabbed his shoulder. Henry reacted on instinct, moving faster than a blink of the eye to spin and lash out with a fist. Except the look-a-like dodged, shouting, “Henry, no!” In a strangely reversed mockery of the only fight he and Lincoln had engaged in that wasn’t for the purpose of learning.

He stopped and stared into a face that was an almost perfect copy, into eyes that seemed to see too much, to know too much. He hadn’t heard that voice say his name in over a hundred years and it made his lifeless heart clench in agony. 

The man in front of him held up his hands and said slowly, “I know you, I think, or I knew you. It sounds crazy, I know, but I’ve got all these memories of life I think I lived before. Life as a vampire hunter. Life with you in it.”

Henry forced a humorless laugh past lips that didn’t want to respond. Voice as close to a condescending sneer as he could manage in his shock, Henry said, “I don’t know who you are, or what you think this will accomplish but I promise you that I’m not the man you think I am.” 

He turned to go and a hand on his elbow stopped him. A Voice, filled with a wealth of longing and pain, told him, “I’m Matthew Abraham Lincoln and my three times great grandmother was Mary Todd Lincoln. I’m not looking for anything, but perhaps some answers. I’ve dreamed of you, or someone who looks exactly like you, _sounds_ exactly like you since I was fifteen. Rule number one: always have a contingency plan, right?” 

Henry turned slightly and asked, “Where did you hear that?” 

The Abe look-a-like shook his head and said, “From you, in my dreams. Also, that real power comes from truth, not hate and myths don’t beat you senseless after you’ve put a bullet in their brain.” 

The unneeded breath Henry had taken more out of habit than anything else caught in his throat. He knew those words, remembered speaking them. He was aware that a copy of those words had been written down in Lincoln’s memoirs. But to the best of Henry’s knowledge they hadn’t been anywhere else. He had tried to give the journal to Mary, thinking that Abe’s thoughts and words would bring her some solace after the theater but she had refused, telling him that Abe always knew what he was doing, and if the book had been given to Henry, Abe had done so for a reason. As much as Henry had resented her, he had also respected her. It took a vast amount of willpower and self-respect to love a personality like Abraham Lincoln. 

Gaze roaming over the willowy figure that stood slightly hunched in front of him, Henry wondered if it were even possible for a soul to be reborn. The Buddhist believed it so, as did several other religious sects but Henry had lost what little faith he had ever had the day that Adam took away his light. Abe Lincoln had brought light and color back into his world, and for some strange reason, Henry thought that this boy, this look-a-like would do the same. Shaking his head, Henry rubbed his fingers over his brow before he said, taking the easy way out of a situation that was completely out of his realm of experience and rapidly whittling away at his self-control, “This is crazy, and we’re through here.” 

Henry told himself that the devastated look that flashed briefly across the boy’s face wasn’t his concern. Wasn’t his problem. It was a lie, and it rang hollow in his mind. He forced himself to walk away. 

All he wanted was to pull that warm body close, to inhale the scent of Abraham Lincoln and bask in the sense of peace and righteousness that came with it. To relax into the feeling of home that standing next to Lincoln had always given him. The boy now behind him was as much of a lie as any Henry had ever told, and while he said fewer these days, he still strolled down a line that was neither wholly one side nor wholly the other. He knew a lie when he saw it.

His feet took him straight back to his townhouse and with a sad sigh and a look around he let himself in. Turning he hesitated at relocking the door before he sighed and left it open. If the boy was indeed the incarnated form of his old friend, there was little Henry could do to stop this newcomer from pursuit until Henry gave in. He just wondered what the cost would be in the end.


	4. Chapter 4

Notably, Henry didn’t receive a visitor that night and so, when the light of a new day began to tickle the edges of the world in a prism of pastels Henry locked his home up and retired to his basement retreat. He was old enough now that the sun was a mere annoyance rather than a hated enemy but sometimes old habit died hard. 

The doorbell ringing became his alarm and briefly as he threw aside his covers Henry wondered if anyone would really notice if he removed the blasted thing and put the knocker back on. Henry could sleep through someone knocking on his door, but never that blasted bell. Stalking up the stairs, he promised himself if it was a door to door salesman he was going to eat them. Consequences be damned. 

The bell rang a third time as Henry stood in front of it and with a growl he threw the door open only to freeze as his Abe look-a-like was revealed. Henry nearly smiled. The boy on his stoop looked a right mess. The hair was going every which way, the shirt was rumpled, and there were bags under those mesmerizing brown eyes that looked painful. The pair gazed at each other for a long moment before Henry turned and walked away. Leaving the door open in a clear invitation as he meandered back towards his kitchen. The conversation that would follow would either need coffee or booze, he kept both in the kitchen these days. 

The machine had just started to dribble out the bitter liquid Henry had surprisingly grown fond of when hesitant footsteps announced the presence of his surprise guest. Henry didn’t even have to glance over to know that it was the Abe look-a-like. The even his smell was right for Abe, woodsy with a slight tang of sweat and the distinct hint of Abe Lincoln. It was faint, but without the overpowering smells of the alley to mask its presence, Henry could catch a whiff. Something in his chest tightened painfully for a long moment, and Henry closed his eyes to just breathed. Oh, how he had missed that smell. 

Behind him, the look-a-like, which Henry was starting to believe was actually Abe Lincoln reincarnated, sat something down on his table softly. The sound was followed by five more, so when Henry turned around with two cups of freshly brewed coffee, there was a stack of black eight by twelve books on his table in front of the look-a-like. 

Henry took a seat, slid a cup across the table and just waited. The look-a-like took a sip and grimaced before standing up and getting the sugar. Henry watched in shock as the boy with no hesitation what so ever opened the right cabinet and pulled out the sugar. This was either a dream come true or the worst nightmare he’d ever had. Henry sat his own cup on the table as the look-a-like added a precise two spoonful’s to his own. 

By the time it took to take a breath had passed, Henry had the boy wrapped tight in his arms, hand in those fly away curls yanking the head to the side exposing a pale column of flesh and teeth against a rapid pulse as he asked, “What game are you playing boy? Who sent you and how did you find me?”

The body against him tensed in fear but didn’t struggle in Henry’s hold. The rapid pulse against his teeth slowly calmed as the boy got over the fright Henry had caused with his quick movements. Henry didn’t let go, though and waited for whatever answer would be given. 

“It’s not a game, I promise. I followed you here last night after the alley and Mary Winstead, one of my professor of art said that there was a man who looked like the one who fills my sketchbooks that could be found at the Shadow Room.” The boy in his arms swallowed before whispering, “I’ve been in love with that man since I was a teenager and couldn’t bear to live with the unanswered question of what if. So I went, and you were there, and I just needed to know if you were the person I’ve dreamed about for a decade.” 

Henry laid his head against the boy's shoulder for a moment as the words hit him. Carefully, he untangled his fingers from soft brown curls and with an unneeded breath took a step back and away. A step more took him back to his chair where he collapsed down into it. With his head in his hands, Henry tried, “Whatever else I may be Mr. Lincoln, a good man is not one of them anymore. You were a stupid idiot to follow the likes of me.” 

Henry stopped abruptly as Lincoln interrupted, “That’s bullshit, Henry.” Before moving across the room to the sketchbooks piled on his table and selecting one from the middle and flipping through it until he found whatever it was, he was looking for and thrust the book towards Henry, who took it without thinking. 

Looking down at the page, Henry reeled with the hit with the memory drawn provoked. He remembered that alleyway, remembered the bitter taste of the rapist but most of all remembered the grievous conversation that had followed and ended in silence between them for more than two decades. With a gentle finger he traced the image of his own face twisted by the demon he carried inside, he looked like a monster. A long finger tapped the page next to his own and asked softly, “If you are not a good man, why do you prey on those who prey on others?” 

Henry didn’t have an answer. He was still reeling with the knowledge that whoever this boy was now once upon a time he had been Abraham Lincoln, father of the nation. Terrified and curious all at once, Henry flipped through a few more pages. Most of them held sketches of random items but here and there would be a view of a time long past. The room in his basement built for absolute darkness, the pocket watch which he had given Abe and Mary had kept on her person until she died, an image of Henry at what he thought was Abe’s wedding, another of Henry leaned up against a tree arms crossed and a delighted smirk gracing his features. The snapshots of time went on until he reached the end of the book. There was absolutely no way that this Lincoln could have known any of that, let alone have a good enough description to draw them without having been there. 

Looking up Henry asked, “How is this possible?” 

The boy now leaned against his table with the cup of coffee in his hands, merely shrugged before saying, “No idea. The dreams started when I turned fifteen.” 

“I’m not the same as I was then.” Henry tried again, sought to keep this version away from the darkness, to keep him safe.

“Neither am I.” Was the response Henry was given with a shrug of a shoulder. Henry looked up and marveled at how at home Lincoln seemed. The boy in front of him was calm and at ease as if he spent every evening drinking coffee in Henry’s kitchen bathed in the golden glow of the fading light. 

Slouching back in his chair Henry gave up and asked, “So what do I call you if you’re not going to do the sensible thing and stay far away from me?” 

The smirk he got in return would have looked out of place on the man in his memory, but somehow the face in front of him carried it flawlessly before the boy told him, “I’m called Abe, actually.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back!

Abe’s childhood had been less than idyllic. His parent’s had been painfully middle class, and his father hell-bent on proving that they were better off financially than what was the reality. Except there were little things that made his family stand out from all the rest. They never went anywhere interesting on their family vacations, unless you counted that one cabin on the lake that looked like it had been a horror film extra. Abe got new things because he was the oldest of four and Emily got new things because she was the oldest of his sisters. The rest made do with hand-me-downs. Abe’s new things were usually only new to him, and he had been fine with that, clothing was for covering yourself and keeping warm. He’d never wanted to make fashion statements, even when he made it to being a teenager, and he started noticing the people around him had an allure that was both impossible to ignore and undefinable. It hadn’t been long after that in which the dreams had started. 

The dreams had caused him a whole new set of problems. They didn’t just occur at night when he was sleeping. They were the most concise and complete then, but he got little flashes while awake as well that were highly distracting. So distracting that one teacher had recommended that he be put on medication to help him focus. To Abe’s everlasting shame, the teacher had said as much to him while within the hearing range of his peers. He knew she meant well, but the results had been less welcome for him. 

His peers had gotten it in their minuscule, hormone driving heads that he was now weak, fair game for those who were strong. They had started testing him, first with words than with fists. He fought back and reaped the rewards of his actions. It didn’t matter that he was defending himself. All that mattered was that when the teachers caught them, it was Abe who was swinging his fists. His mother told him after the four call from the administration to just ignore the bullies, and they would leave him alone. His father on the other hand had pulled him aside and whispered, furtive glance over his shoulder the whole time, to pick his moment. That if he was going to fight do it on his terms, with his rules, without an authoritative audience. 

It had gotten Abe thinking. So the next time they had started in on him he tried his mother’s advice. The first time, it worked. The bullies and their entourage walked away. The second time it had just made things worse. Luck had been on his side that time though as he hadn’t thrown his fist around and so it hadn’t been his parents who had heard from the principal that day. Their failure and subsequent capture only spelled out worse punishments on him during their next meeting. Abe was smart enough even at sixteen to realize that, so he did his best to avoid them all and mind his own business. 

A feat that lasted all the way up until he was walking home from school. They had joined en masse to teach him a lesson apparently. But now, there were no teachers, no hall monitors looking for trouble. Now there was no one to call his parents. 

He walked home with a limp, a broken nose with two spectacular black eyes and a couple of broken knuckles. His father had clapped him on the back and helped him clean the blood off his face before his mother got home. The fight had been five against one and Abe had walked away. 

It had been a turning point in his life. A realization that survival of the fittest was still present, just tamed by civilization. It had been his crowning moment, and the riotous spiral into chaos that followed had at the time made his head spin. The bullies didn’t stop; they just got cleverer. Abe didn’t stop either and had soon found himself in bare knuckles brawls with adults twice his size. He didn’t win all of them, didn’t even win half of them. Each fight taught him something and unknowingly took in closer to a deep, dark well of a society that he wouldn’t have the skills to survive once through the door. 

His luck had always been a bit fifty -fifty. Half of the time it worked in his favor and half of the time it didn’t. Abe hadn’t even known there was such a thing as a “fight club” in Springfield. Never-the-less it had found him and swallowed him whole. Abe had been lucky enough that one of the few mostly honest patrons had taken a shine to him. Jared DePasquale had shown him the ropes and in’s and out’s of picking his fight. Had taught him how to fight and the rules that went along with it. Jared had trained him to be a winner. Slowly, Abe had become just that, unfortunately as one rises in the ranks of that seedy hierarchy so do the stakes.

In his senior year, Abe had gotten into a pickle he couldn’t wiggle back out of, his grades were all top marks, but he had gotten roped into death matches in the fight club. He knew that he needed a way out. He had latched onto college as that way out. His parents had been thrilled and then over the moon when George Washington University had accepted him. It felt like fate. 

Abe had been nervous and twitchy through his entire first year, always on guard for someone from his old life to find him and drag him down into the underground world he wanted nothing to do with again. Somehow his luck had been in his favor as year after year no one approached him. Slowly his guard came down, and he made friends. Not close ones, Abe knew that the moment he let someone close things would go all to hell. That the watchers he knew had to be there somewhere would pounce and with leverage force Abe into whatever they wanted. 

He hadn’t counted on Henry, though. Hadn’t even considered what first befriending and later shifting into some comfortable more that wasn’t quite a relationship and wasn’t quite a friendship would mean to those watchers Abe had momentarily forgotten. So it came as such a surprise when he was grabbed early one morning on his way back to his apartment. Abe’s surprise didn’t last long, and he fought back. The more he fought, the more he lost and recognized a losing fight long before he lost. Abe knew, somehow deep inside of him he recognized his attackers. Vampires had found him. His last thought was for Henry and how the news of his capture and subsequent death would rip to shreds what little healing Abe had nurtured into being in their short time together. His world went dark as he was still swinging.


End file.
